


call me in the afternoon

by jaylocked



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Group Therapy, M/M, Sassy Neil, Tumblr Prompt, miscommunication to the 11, vaguely romcom-esque somehow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaylocked/pseuds/jaylocked
Summary: Neil had literally been tortured on several occasions, and that was still better than this.(written for the prompt: "andrew and neil meet in a group therapy")





	

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for mentions of self-harm, torture, and canon-adjacent events
> 
> title from song by half moon run of the same name
> 
> originally posted on tumblr. written for the prompt: "Hello :) i have a prompt: andrew and neil meet in a group therapy" and then it grew into a romcom accidentally.

Neil had literally been tortured on several occasions, and that was still better than this.

“…it’s just that I don’t really feel like I can trust anybody after what he did, you know?” the girl continued, one hand clenching her cutesy dress and the other wiping tears of her cheeks. “I don’t know how to move on from it.”

“Thanks for sharing, Lydia,” the slightly-older-but-still-young-enough-to-seem-relevant therapist/volunteer/ambiguous adult said in a soothing tone. “It’s important to voice those thoughts. How have you been trying to move on from him so far?”

The girl warbled on, but Neil had had enough. He let his eyes scan the rest of the scattered circle again, studying the other teenagers present. Most looked sympathetic to Lydia’s plight– one girl with pastel-dyed hair and a kind smile nodded along as she talked–but a few looked out of place. A boy with blond hair and black wristbands seemed to be examining the far wall with an apathetic eye. A girl with every orifice on her face pierced looked like she was contemplating making a run for it.

Nothing particularly interesting, then.

“We’ve got a new member with us today,” Ambiguous Adult announced a few minutes later, attracting Neil’s attention back to him. Dread settled somewhere in his stomach. No no no no– “Neil, is there anything you would like to say? Maybe introduce yourself a little?”

Neil flicked him a considering look and weighed his options. To talk or not to talk? Which was the less painful option?

“I’m Neil,” he landed on. “I’m here because they’re making me come.”

There was a slight frown on Ambiguous Adult’s face. He stared at Neil for a long moment, probably hoping for a little more to go on.

“How’re you doing this week, Neil?” he asked finally. It looked like he was widening his eyes to make himself appear more sympathetic or something. “You don’t have to say anything, of course, but we’d all love to hear from you.”

A few members of the circle nodded. Even bored blond boy had directed his gaze towards Neil.

Neil shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Ambiguous Adult was on his way to a full frown when Pastel Girl interrupted with a soft voice.

“I’ve been having a rough week,” she said.

“Really, Renee? What’s been going on?” Ambiguous Adult asked.

Neil was safe. He barely paid attention as a few more members of the group rambled on, the hour ticking by more slowly than Neil would have previously imagined possible.

Seriously, he’d take knives over this any day.

* * *

“How was the group, Neil?” Abby asked as soon as he closed the door behind him. She was puttering around the kitchen, apparently making the finishing touches on dinner, but she cast a warm smile in his direction nonetheless.

“It was fine,” Neil replied, aiming for neutral and inoffensive. He wanted to stay on Abby’s good side for as long as possible. “I didn’t get much out of it.”

“Well, it was your first time there.” Abby set some food down on the kitchen table and Neil moved to get utensils and plates out. “It’ll probably take a little while for you to really feel comfortable with everybody.”

Neil made a noncommittal gesture. It was hard to imagine ever wanting to share his past or current problems with a motley crew of fucked up teens, but a year ago it would’ve been hard for him to imagine living the life of a normal high school student in California. Things change.

“But group therapy isn’t for everybody,” Abby continued, placing potatoes on the table and sitting down herself. “They said you’re supposed to attend the sessions for three months, but it’ll be optional after that.”

Three months of weekly, hour-long torture sessions. Neil guessed it was a relatively small price to pay for warm dinners and welcoming smiles. He sat down across from Abby with a nod.

* * *

Neil was unfortunately early to the next meeting, which led to him loitering in the men’s bathroom at the clinic to avoid interacting with the other group members until absolutely necessary. He got out the phone Abby had forced onto him in case somebody came in and he needed to look busy, but mostly he stared at the floor and idly wondered how severe an injury he would need to inflict on himself to avoid the meeting.

The door banged open when there were still ten minutes to go and Neil hastened to flip open his phone. He looked intently down at the screen, navigating to the texting app just for something to do. The counter behind him bit into his back uncomfortably.

After a moment of silence, Neil realized that whoever had entered hadn’t moved beyond the doorway. The blond boy from last week was looking at Neil with narrowed eyes, unabashedly studying him.

“Can I help you?” Neil asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“What’re you doing in the bathroom on a phone from 1995?”

Neil looked back down at his phone consideringly. “Did they have cell phones in ‘95? I thought they were more recent than that.”

Blondie looked like he didn’t know what to make of that, finally moving across the small room to a urinal. Neil looked back at his phone and opened a new text to Abby, resolutely ignoring the other boy. (He wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice when it came to contacts. He doubted Agent Gray would appreciate a non-emergency related text. Then again, it could be fun to mess with him…)

 _Made it to the clinic without any problems_ , Neil painstakingly typed out. Abby would like that. Probably. People like Abby seemed to like it when their (foster) kids checked in with them, right?

Neil looked back up to find Blondie washing his hands and leveling him with a considering look.

“You’re just hiding out from the group, aren’t you?” Blondie asked. His lips twisted into a smirk.

Neil shrugged noncommittally. His phone chimed and he nearly dropped it in surprise. Blondie raised a judgmental eyebrow.

 _Great! Hope it goes better this time around!_ the new text read.

Neil hadn’t been living with her long, but he had pegged Abby as a hopelessly optimistic person early on.

 _Thanks_ , he responded.

“You’ll be late if you try to type out another text on that,” Blondie said as he passed Neil. He sounded totally bored, like he couldn’t be bothered if Neil showed up at all, but the fact that he said anything in the first place betrayed him.

Neil followed him out to the room where they had met last week. Blondie flopped into a chair beside Pastel Girl. Neil wandered across the circle to sit between Lydia the Crier and Piercing Girl. Hopefully they would attract all the attention away from him.

“Welcome back, everybody!” Ambiguous Adult greeted with a broad grin as he entered the room precisely on the hour. “It’s great to see you all. Now, I was thinking we could start the week with roses and thorns. Does that sounds alright to you all? Of course, if you don’t want to say anything, you can pass– we never want to pressure you into sharing, but please know that we would all love to hear what’s going on with you. Anybody want to start us off?”

Neil tuned out for most of the icebreaker– everybody seemed to have had pretty average weeks, not too much to comment on. Blondie passed, as did Neil.

Last week, the intrigue of a new setting had kept his mind occupied, but this week he was starting to get a bit pissed off. Therapy was weird enough as it was, but who thought it was a good idea to stick a bunch of messed up kids together? Who was that helping?

“He hasn’t been socialized nearly enough,” Agent Gray had said to Abby that first night, thinking that Neil was still in the bathroom. “He has great academic skills, and he can hold conversations without a problem, but being on the run with only his mom has to have done a number on his social skills. Hopefully between school and the group therapy, he’ll be able to catch up.”

So what if he hadn’t talked to many other people besides his mother over the past eight years? To be able to blend in and not attract attention, he’d had to understand social cues as well as anybody his age, if not better. It was hard to feel like listening to any of his peers would help him after what he had been through.

The hour dragged on.

* * *

It’s not like school was that much better than group therapy, but at least nobody there really expected him to interact much. He found himself on-edge most of the time, scanning the room for exits and evaluating his classmates as potential threats, but sometimes he was able to learn something, so that was nice.

The bus he took from school towards the clinic ran on the half hour, so Neil decided to run the risk of being late his third week of therapy. He entered the room a second behind Ambiguous Adult, sitting in the only empty seat available and mentally preparing for another agonizing hour.

He barely listened, staring instead at the floor and wall as he planned out his English essay as best he could. He’d been thrown into Honors-level classes at his high school, which provided at least a bit of a challenge. Luckily Abby had a computer he could use at home, something he’d never had on the run.

He knew deep down that he was much better off with Abby, with both his parents in coffins in Seattle and California, with the FBI’s protection. But sometimes, some days, he couldn’t help but wish he could buy a cigarette or speak in French. His hands itched for a steering wheel, the freedom of an open road, and a disposable identity.

“Neil, we haven’t heard much from you before,” Ambiguous Adult announced after a few minutes of the usual proceedings. Neil looked up to find a foolishly hopeful expression on his face. “What’re you thinking about? How’s your week going?”

“I’m fine,” Neil shrugged. Ambiguous Adult continued staring at Neil. He resisted fidgeting under the scrutiny. Maybe he should listen for his introduction next week. He probably had an actual name, right? 

“This week is fine. I have an essay for English I should start.”

Ambiguous Adult looked unduly excited over the prospect of Neil’s essay on King Lear. “Are you feeling anxious over your essay? How’s your new school?”

Neil frowned. How did he know that Neil had switched schools? Was he in communication with Neil’s regular therapist?

“It’s fine.” Neil hoped his tone left no room for further conversation.

Ambiguous Adult deflated and let his gaze flick to the guy beside Neil. “Thomas, how has your week been?”

Neil let himself relax slightly, looking around the circle at his groupmates. Everybody else was listening to Thomas’s account of his week– everybody but Blondie, that was. Blondie was openly studying Neil again.

What was his deal?

* * *

“I don’t know if we’ve been formally introduced,” a light voice beside him said when the session had finally wrapped up. Neil glanced over to find Lydia the Crier smiling at him, a strand of red hair twisted around her finger. “I’m Lydia.”

“Neil.”

She smiled up at him, eyelashes fluttering.

“Do you have something in your eye?” Neil frowned. Lydia the Crier’s cheeks turned faintly red as she turned away, fleeing the room.

Neil leaned down to grab his backpack and head towards the bus, interaction already forgotten.

A low chuckle behind him proceeded Blondie slinking in front of Neil. A smirk played on his lips again.

“Neat shutdown,” Blondie commented. He came to a stop a foot away from Neil, his sharp brown eyes still assessing. “Lydia always tries to move in on new meat.”

“What?”

Blondie rolled his eyes with an exasperated huff of breath. “She was hitting on you, idiot.”

“Was she?” Neil frowned. “Whatever.” He glanced down at his watch– he would have to speed walk to the bus stop if he didn’t want to be catch the later bus. “See you next week.”

“What’s the rush?” Blondie kept pace as Neil left the room, despite the slight height difference between the two.

“What’s it to you?”

Blondie hummed. “Nothing much. A distraction, maybe. You seem like you could be interesting.”

“Interesting?” Neil snorted. They reached the doors of the clinic. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Where are you off to now?” Blondie asked. He was scanning the parking lot with an apparently apathetic expression, but once again the question itself pointed towards an interest that discomfited Neil.

“Bus home,” Neil responded, trying to shake off his suspicion. He could almost hear his therapist telling him to relax and make conversation.

 _Not everybody is trying to get something from you,_ her voice reminded him. _You’re safe now. You don’t have to keep hiding everything._

Blondie looked back to Neil and squinted as though he was trying to catch a lie. Neil took a step backwards, towards the street. He would probably have to run to the bus at this rate.

“Want a ride?” Blondie said after another moment, just as Neil started wondering how impolite it would be to just run away from the other boy.

Neil tried to hide his surprise and innate suspicion at the question. _You’re safe now._

“I don’t even know your name.”

Blondie grinned.

“It’s Andrew.” He pointed towards a generic black car towards the front of the parking lot. “And that’s my ride. You in?”

Neil hesitated. He looked back at his watch and sighed. “Fine.”

Andrew smirked, like he knew that’s exactly what Neil would say.

* * *

“How was therapy today?” Abby asked when Neil got home, a few minutes earlier than normal. The ride with Andrew had been pretty quiet aside from directions. It was actually somewhat…nice.

“Fine,” Neil replied, toeing his shoes off and putting his bag down by the door.

“Any different than the first two?” Abby pressed as Neil padded into the kitchen. “Talk to anybody new?”

Neil thought back to Andrew’s smirk, his offer of giving Neil a ride from school to the clinic the following week. His easy silence and sharp eyes.

“Yeah,” Neil said slowly. “I think I made a friend.”

* * *

Neil had forgotten about the whole Andrew thing until Wednesday came and Abby was dropping him off at school.

“Have fun with your friend today,” she told him as he grabbed his backpack and prepared to get out of the car.

“Who?”

Abby chuckled. “From group? After school today?”

“Oh, right.” Abby gave him a small wave and Neil made his way into Palmetto High. As he got his school stuff out of his locker, he realized that he had no idea how he was supposed to meet Andrew. Did Andrew even go to PHS?

The day was as interesting as ever, which is to say that Neil barely paid attention.

After he gathered his books from his locker at the end of the day, he hiked up his backpack on his shoulders and headed out of school. It was winter, but in California that didn’t count for much. Neil tugged down on his sleeves and looked around the front of the school. He was just deciding whether or not to speed up and catch the earlier bus when he heard somebody calling his new name.

“JOSTEN! Planning on running to the clinic?”

Andrew was leaned up against his car, arms crossed and irritated expression visible halfway across the parking lot. He watched as Neil crossed the lot, not moving out of his slouch. Once Neil came to a stop in front of him, he straightened up slightly, arms falling to the side.

“You want a ride?” Andrew asked rather redundantly. Neil rolled his eyes and circled around to the passenger’s side.

“You could say thanks,” Andrew remarked, sliding into the car himself.

“Thank you, Andrew, for a ride I didn’t ask for.”

Andrew smirked, reversing the car out of the spot. They got out of the parking lot with no further discussion, but Neil found himself slightly curious about the blond boy.

“So you go to PHS?” Neil asked, surprising himself. Andrew kept his gaze fixed in front of him as he nodded slightly. “What year?”

“Junior.”

That explained why Neil hadn’t seen him around much, but then again, Neil hadn’t begun recognizing that many people in the month he’d been at school so far.

“Why’d you switch schools halfway through January?” Andrew said. Neil watched him speculatively as they pulled up at a red light.

“Just moved to the area,” Neil answered vaguely. He’d stuck to that answer for the past month, and nobody had pressed further than that. Andrew raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

The rest of the ride was silent. Neil kept his eyes on their surroundings, not totally comfortable in a stranger’s car. They pulled up at the clinic ridiculously early. Andrew killed the engine and slid out of the car and Neil followed.

They sat next to each other that day, and Neil finished a few questions on his Trig assignment before the session began. It somehow didn’t seem quite as terrible as the first three had been, even when Lydia cried twice.

* * *

Neil found himself thinking of more questions for Andrew when he got home. He’d been having trouble sleeping ever since everything happened with his mom, flashes of those last few hours and the mayhem of the FBI catching up with him just before he could set fire to a car haunting him once the lights were off and his brain tried to quiet down.

That night, after Andrew had dropped him back at Abby’s house and they had shared a companionable dinner, Neil was surprised to find himself thinking of the surly blond. He wondered why Andrew was in group therapy when it didn’t seem like he wanted to say anything, and if Andrew knew anybody else in the group, and if Andrew liked Ambiguous Adult.

Neil drifted off to the memory of Andrew’s hair flashing in the reflected sun as they pulled out of the parking lot. It was a lot nicer than his usual nighttime memories.

* * *

Neil was prepared next Wednesday. He hit his locker quickly, grabbed the books he wanted, and then squinted around the parking lot until his eyes locked on Andrew’s car in the far corner of the lot. He ambled over and leaned against it until Andrew appeared a few minutes later.

Andrew unlocked the door with a raised eyebrow towards Neil as he slipped easily into the passenger’s seat. They left the school in silence again before Neil sprang the question that had been bugging him.

“How’d you know my last name?”

Andrew actually looked away from the road at that, shooting him a slightly confused, slightly annoyed expression.

“Last week,” Neil clarified. “You called my last name across the parking lot, but in group they just know me as Neil.”

Andrew rolled his eyes at that. “Josten, if you thought you could get away with moving to a new school in the middle of the year looking like you do and not have everyone talking about you, you’re severely mistaken.”

Neil frowned. Looking like he looked? What did that mean?

“What’s your last name, then?” Neil asked.

“Why’d you move in the middle of the year?” Andrew said, ignoring Neil’s inquiry. Neil looked down at his hands and shrugged. Which answer to give?

“Parents changed jobs,” he finally picked. It was perhaps technically true, if one considered being dead a profession.

Andrew side eyed him like he didn’t quite buy it, but he pulled into the clinic parking lot without further discussion. They made it into the room with a while to go, so Neil pulled out his book for English and got half his reading done. Andrew sat beside him and fiddled with his phone.

The actual session passed as painlessly as it could. Neil suppressed memories of life on the run as best he could, tried not to mentally belittle everybody else’s problems, and stared around the room in boredom.

Andrew drove him to Abby’s silently, and Neil was almost sorry to see him go.

* * *

Neil went out of his way to ask a boy in his PE class, a girl in his Trig class, and his partner in Spanish about a junior named Andrew. The boy in PE shrugged and said he didn’t know many juniors, the girl in Trig stared at him with an open mouth for an uncomfortable amount of time, and his Spanish partner ignored him.

Abby seemed pleased when Neil offhandedly mentioned that he’d been asking around about Andrew. He couldn’t tell why.

* * *

“Seriously, what’s your last name?” Neil asked as soon as Andrew approached the car. Neil had beaten him to it again this week, not that Andrew seemed to care.

They got into the car without further talking, though Neil tried to stare the answer out of Andrew. It was annoying to feel like he could trust Andrew, having quite literally put his life in his hands the first time he got in the car, and not know anything about the guy.

“It’s Doe,” Andrew answered finally, after a few long minutes of Neil studying his every feature carefully.

That response raised more questions than it answered. Dammit, it would be great if Neil could stop wondering about Andrew, but he kept doing something to keep it interesting.

Neil watched out the window as they drove down now-familiar roads and tried to remember who got named Doe and why. It was enough to get him through group, as he stared at Andrew’s feet and tried to deduce his life story from the soles of his shoes. It wasn’t a very effective method.

Andrew was almost at Abby’s when he broke the silence. “Who’s making you go to group?”

The obvious answer was, of course, the FBI, but Neil didn’t want to spread that around. The first rule of witness protection was to not acknowledge that you were in witness protection.

“My parents,” Neil said, just as they turned onto his street. Again, in a roundabout way, it wasn’t a lie. If his parents hadn’t mutually destructed in Seattle and left Neil alone in the world, nosy FBI agents wouldn’t be trying to socialize him.

Years on the run had really taught Neil some superb skills of rationalization.

Neil could feel Andrew’s eyes on his back as he let himself into Abby’s house and wondered if Andrew knew he was lying.

* * *

“I just realized that you’re halfway through your group therapy mandate,” Abby commented over dinner that night. “Do you think you’ll keep going when the three months are up?”

Neil shook his head immediately and tried not to shudder at the thought of voluntarily listening to Lydia cry about her ex-boyfriend.

He firmly ignored the image of Andrew and his car that popped into his head first.

* * *

Neil had figured out the pattern to his quiet car rides with Andrew. A question for a question, an answer for an answer. He took to planning out what he would ask in the days leading up to group, wondering if he could unlock more of Andrew’s history but scared of setting him off.

Week seven of therapy, week four of riding with Andrew went like:

“What do you like doing outside of school?”

“I don’t like anything. You?”

“Math. Running. Practicing foreign languages.”

Neil hadn’t even lied, but he had earned another raised eyebrow.

(He had lain awake that night, staring at the ceiling, and wondered what it was like not to like anything. He wanted to dismiss Andrew sometimes as just another teenager pretending to have problems, but something about the deadness of his tone, the flatness of his eyes when he looked around, made Neil pause.)

And then week eight:

“Do you have any friends in group?”

“Renee and I have an understanding. I see her a lot more than I see most people, at the very least. Why don’t you like group?”

Neil thought for a long moment before answering. “I just don’t really want to hear about strangers’ lives. It’s not going to help me any.”

(Who calls friendship an ‘understanding’? What do Andrew and Renee do together?)

And week nine:

“Do you like group?”

Andrew had been the one to pause then before he finally nodded. “Do you like PHS better than where you were before?”

It was interesting to Neil that he said ‘where you were’ rather than ‘your old school.’ Neil nodded instantly, though, and there wasn’t anything to add to that.

(Neil ignored the memories of broken promises he had made, hoped his mom couldn’t know about his quick and easy assessment of his new life, and focused instead on why Andrew could possibly enjoy the slow torture that was group therapy.)

Week ten:

“ _Why_ do you like group?”

“Because sometimes, it can help to hear other people’s problems.” Andrew paused, flicked a glance towards Neil. “It’s good to remember that nobody is what they look on the outside.”

Andrew had waited until after group that day to ask, “Have you met anybody you like at PHS?”

Neil shrugged. Did he particularly like any of his peers? No, nobody but Andrew had caught his attention at all. He shook his head more definitively and then wondered why Andrew would waste a question on that. The other boy smirked the whole drive back to Abby’s.

(What did it mean that nobody is what they look on the outside? What did Neil look like on the outside? What did Andrew look like on the inside? And dammit, why did Neil even want to know?)

Week eleven:

“What do you do with Renee?”

Andrew shot him a look that Neil couldn’t interpret before he responded. “We play on the same Exy team, mostly, but she’s been teaching me how to fight.”

Neil looked down at his hands and fought against a shudder. He knew all too well about fighting.

“Do you like your parents?”

Damn, Andrew wasn’t pulling any punches. Neil stared out the window for a long time before he slowly shook his head.

(The mental image of Andrew playing a team sport and yelling out plays on a court almost made Neil smile as he drifted off to sleep that night.)

And then finally, finally, week twelve:

“What the fuck is that guy who runs group’s name?”

Andrew had stared at Neil for a long, long minute before rolling his eyes. “Carl. Who do you trust?”

Neil stared at Andrew and considered not answering. What kind of an invasive question was that? Jesus.

Finally, though, Neil offered up, “I don’t think I trust anybody.”

Andrew nodded slowly at that. Neil wondered if that was a lie or not.

* * *

When they came to a stop outside Abby’s, Neil hesitated.

“So, I’m actually done with group therapy now,” he told Andrew. Andrew narrowed his eyes. “They said I just have to do three months, so my time’s up. Thanks for all the rides, I guess. Good luck with Lydia.”

Andrew watched as Neil opened the door slowly. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, why he didn’t just get out. He had rounded the front of the car when Andrew’s window rolled down.

“Josten.” It wasn’t said half as loudly as it had been that first day in the parking lot, but Neil whipped around anyway, just in time to catch an object headed straight for his head. It was a phone. “Put your number in there. Maybe we could meet up sometime or something. I can let you know what you’re missing.”

Neil suppressed a smile as he slid open the phone. He had to get his own phone out to copy the number off of it as he hadn’t bothered memorizing it. He ignored Andrew’s judgmental look as he tossed the phone back at Andrew, who caught it deftly.

Abby did a double take when Neil walked in the door and asked him what he was so happy about.

“Guess I’m glad I’m free of group therapy,” he told her. He could picture perfectly the skeptical brow raise Andrew would have given him at the lie.

* * *

After that, Neil’s life became even less exciting. Group therapy hadn’t particularly added any excitement to his day, but the promise of riding with Andrew and getting to ask him something was at least something to chew on when he was bored in class.

Weekends had always difficult for him to navigate in his new life. Abby was endlessly kind and generous, but with him home from school and her home from work more often, he didn’t want to test the limits on that. He tried to stay out of the house, wandering around the neighborhood and finding good people-watching spots.

The first Saturday after group therapy ended, he was going for a run through the park by the house when he noticed Andrew jogging in his direction. The shorter boy looked apathetic even despite the obvious exertion.

“Josten,” Andrew nodded as he approached, slowing down. Neil stopped. “How’s it going?”

Neil shrugged. “Fine. Just finishing up my run now.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow and Neil looked down, realizing that he was barely sweaty. He hadn’t wanted to push himself, and it took a lot of running to really make him sweat, not that Andrew knew that.

“I run a lot,” he said lamely. He usually wasn’t on edge in the face of silence, but something about Andrew really got under his skin.

“You ever play Exy?” Andrew asked, running another eye up and down Neil’s frame.

“Exy? The one with the sticks?”

Andrew looked amused. “Kevin would die if he heard that. I bet you’d be pretty good though.”

Neil shrugged again. “I’ve never really done sports before with other people.”

Andrew tilted his head and stared at Neil for a long moment before apparently making up his mind and nodding. “What’re you doing this afternoon?”

Neil shrugged yet again and wished he would stop doing that. “Not much.”

“Want to check out a practice?”

Neil took a moment to contemplate his options: an afternoon of acting busy while tiptoeing around Abby, or potentially making an idiot of himself in front of Andrew. He eventually nodded, and Andrew’s mouth tilted into a small smile, gone so fast Neil didn’t have time to appreciate it.

“It starts at one, in the community rec center. I was going to grab lunch beforehand, though. Want to come along?”

And that was how Neil found himself trailing behind Andrew for an entire afternoon.

* * *

Andrew had left his car by the entrance to the park, so they were able to drive straight to lunch and then on to practice.

There wasn’t much real conversation– they both made a few snide comments about the other diners goers and then had a surprisingly detailed examination of zombie apocalypse scenarios over lunch, but the car rides were silent.

Exy practice surprised Neil several times over.

First of all, Andrew was good. Like, really good. Like, unbelievably good. It was kind of hard to focus on so many stimuli at once, with the stick thing in his hand and the people running at him and Andrew in the background, blocking every ball sent his way.

Neil himself wasn’t so bad– it was clear that everybody else was a lot more experienced than him, but he was good at anticipating where he should go, and he was able to get around defenders before they realized what was happening.

The team itself was...interesting. Andrew hovered behind him during breaks in play, not really saying anything but providing a familiar face nonetheless. Renee sent him a smile that he tried to return.

He had a hard time with all the names and faces, but he was able to nail down a few things. Kevin was the tall one who was way overly intense for a community team practice during the offseason. Dan was dating Matt, and both of them were determined to get to know Neil. Allison and Seth were ambiguously dating as well, although Allison spent a fair amount of time throwing assessing gazes in Neil’s direction.

Apparently, they were all high school students from the area. Because Exy wasn’t super popular, not enough local schools had teams for there to be a league, so the community team competed regionally.

Then there was the coach- Coach Wymack. He seemed pretty passionate about the sport, harsh on the team, but from a place of fondness rather than genuine aggression. He was Kevin’s dad, and Neil supposed that maybe Kevin just wanted to impress his father, and that’s why he took it so seriously. Or he was just crazy.

It was a refreshing few hours, and Neil enjoyed it far more than he had expected. Maybe sports was something he could invest in to distract himself.

It was only after Andrew dropped him off later that afternoon that he realized they hadn’t swapped any questions. He wondered if that had been contingent on his participation in group therapy, or if all he had to do was ask to get it going again. He wondered if there would be an _again_.

* * *

Neil was really, truly surprised when Andrew texted him on Monday during school. Neil was staring out the window in his Trig class when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He flipped it open under the desk immediately– Abby and Agent Gray were the only people who used the number, so it was probably something important.

It took him a few minutes to remember giving Andrew his number the week before as he read and reread the simple _this school is so boring_ from an unknown number.

He spent the entire rest of the period trying to figure out what Andrew wanted and what he was supposed to respond to something like that.

At the end of the day, he finally sent back a simple _yeah_ and hoped that would be enough.

* * *

It turned out that yes, that _was_ enough. Andrew apparently took it as an invitation to text Neil once or twice a day with simple (but generally scathing) messages.

_my gov teacher looks like a walrus crossed with a monkey. he should be inspected for science_

_kevin’s trying to get me to watch exy highlights during lunch. does he not get that the season doesn’t start until september?_

_in case you were wondering, renee could totally kick your ass_

Neil didn’t really know how to respond– was he expected to continue the conversations? Make pointless observations of his own? Where was Andrew going with this?

He thought things might get a bit clearer on Friday when Andrew invited him back to practice: _btw, if you want to come to exy tomorrow you’re welcome to. you can borrow equipment again and there aren’t any fees for offseason training. kevin even grudgingly said you have potential_

So Andrew was trying to recruit him for Exy. That didn’t seem like a bad idea.

* * *

Neil’s life picked up a new rhythm after that. Andrew texted him pretty frequently, which made Abby at least smile. Homework wasn’t that hard, even as final exams came closer on the horizon. Exy practice each Saturday helped take his mind off everything at least for a while.

Andrew said that there was practice three times a week during the actual season as well as games, and Neil couldn’t tell if that was a passing comment or an invitation. The team itself seemed to like Neil fine– Kevin seemed pleased as Neil picked up more and more strategy each week, and Matt and Dan smiled at him all the time. His phone had more contacts now, at least.

Life as a regular high school student didn’t actually seem that bad, especially given that he was free of group therapy. (He wasn’t free of his one-on-one sessions, but he had to acknowledge that those actually helped. He wouldn’t be allowed to stop with them until his therapist discharged him, so there was no use fighting it.)

One Wednesday night, a month after he was finished with group, Andrew texted him: _want to get dinner friday night?_

Neil smiled and wondered if that was what it was like to have friends. He’d never had the luxury before, but it felt nice.

* * *

Dinner Friday night turned out to be a repeat of the diner they had gone to before. It was crowded and noisy but that just provided plenty of opportunities for them to make up unflattering stories about everybody around them.

Neil couldn’t remember when he’d had this much fun. He doesn’t think his mom would be pleased with him, but she can rot in hell for all he cares.

* * *

There’s a weird moment that night, when Andrew was dropping Neil off. (Neil’d become used to sliding out of the car the minute it got to Abby’s, wanting to avoid Andrew and Abby meeting for as long as possible.)

“I had a nice time tonight,” Andrew said out of the blue as Neil unbuckled his seatbelt. He paused, hand on the door handle, and nodded cautiously.

“We should do it again,” he suggested, when it seemed like some input was apparently expected. A light flickered on in the front of the house and Neil guessed that Abby was waiting around for him.

Andrew sent him a real smile that Neil returned easily, but his face crumpled when Neil finally dropped out onto the street. Neil blinked and the expression was gone.

“See you around,” Neil offered, having absolutely no idea what Andrew was expecting.

The other boy offered him a nod of acknowledgement before driving off. Abby was perched on the couch, newspaper in hand (who even reads the newspaper?), when Neil made his way inside.

“Did you have fun?” she asked immediately with a bright smile. Neil nodded. “Oh, that’s great. You were with Andrew, right?”

“Yeah,” Neil replied, shuffling towards his room and away from the interrogation. “We got dinner and then hung out by the waterfront.”

“That sounds lovely,” Abby beamed. Neil nodded again, awkwardly. “You should bring him around sometime so I can meet him.”

Neil stifled panic at her words, remembering the half-lies he’d fed Andrew at the beginning of their...friendship? about his parents and group therapy. It would raise a lot of questions for Andrew to learn that Neil was in the system.

“Um, maybe,” he hedged. Abby looked satisfied, so Neil bade goodnight and all but ran out of the room.

* * *

After that, Neil wondered how he had ever not known that Andrew went to PSH with him. He was _everywhere_. He passed by his locker before school and after school. He was across the hall as Neil switched from Trig to Spanish. He was jogging laps for gym outside Neil’s English class windows.

They generally exchanged a nod across the hall, maybe a smile. Andrew would stop if Neil was by his locker, offer a few words. Sometimes Neil was able to snag a ride home, not that he minded the walk much.

(He wondered to himself when he started to think of Abby’s as _home_. It felt like a loaded word.)

Exy was fun, and Abby was glad that Neil was “putting himself out there more.” He tried to stay away from the details so that she wouldn’t try to nose into it– he didn’t really want her to show up at practice or anything– but he was glad that her kindness showed no signs of disappearing.

Andrew became part of his life in a way he took for granted, and Neil liked it. He thought that maybe Andrew was his best friend, and not just because he didn’t really have any other friends.

“Hey, is it alright with you if I had a friend and her son over for dinner this Friday?” Abby asked one night as they were washing up. Neil shrugged. He didn’t think he had any plans with Andrew, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Which friend?” he questioned. He was getting better at the whole polite small talk thing, especially when he knew he should make an effort, like with Abby.

“Her name is Bee. She works at the hospital with me, but I didn’t know her until I got involved with foster care. She’s been doing it for longer than me, although she’s only had her current son for two years now.”

“Sounds nice,” Neil said blandly. “It’d be great to meet her.”

Abby beamed at him as he left the kitchen, and he could feel a smile on his own face, too. It was unfamiliar but nice.

* * *

Andrew had just texted him when the doorbell went off on Friday night. Neil checked his phone as he could hear Abby opening the door and welcoming the guests in.

_don’t want to be polite with strangers, send help_

_preaching to the choir,_ he sent back, staggering off his bed and making his way to the living room.

Standing in the living room was none other than Andrew and a kind-looking woman. They blinked at each other.

“Neil! There you are,” Abby chirped, waving him over as she sat in her usual armchair. The woman–Bee, presumably–made her way towards the couch, but Andrew and Neil remained where they were.

“Neil?” Andrew finally said, disbelief coloring his words.

“This is _Neil_?” Bee asked from the couch, her eyebrows doing something Neil couldn’t decipher.

“Oh! Is this your Andrew, Neil?” Abby was smiling, but Neil was feeling vague panic well up inside of him.

“Um, not _mine_ exactly,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his neck and looking anywhere but Andrew. “But maybe I could show him my room before dinner?”

Abby and Bee shared a look that Neil couldn’t begin to understand.

“Alright, you two have fun,” Abby told him with a wink. Neil nodded once before turning back to his room, hoping Andrew would follow. He didn’t want to have this conversation in front of others.

Andrew was probably the first best friend Neil could remember having, his childhood days in Baltimore just a haze. He hoped that his initial distrust and resulting lies wouldn’t ruin everything.

Andrew closed the door behind him when they reached his room. Not knowing what else to do, Neil rubbed at his neck and looked around the room. There wasn’t much to see. Neil wasn’t much of an interior decorator.

“So,” Andrew said after a few minutes of stifling silence. “I guess when you mentioned your parents you failed to include a few crucial details, like how they’re not around anymore.”

Neil turned to face him and bit his lip. “There’s a reason I was in group therapy.”

Andrew rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Yeah, no shit. You’re not exactly a normal teenager, Neil. I just thought when you said that your parents were making you go to group, it was, you know, your parents directly intervening in your life, not some weird indirect ‘they fucked me up and left before even footing the bill for the therapy I need as a result.’”

“You never mentioned that you’re in foster care either,” Neil pointed out. He immediately regretted it. Andrew’s look turned condescending.

“There’s really only so many explanations for the last name Doe. Besides, you never asked.”

“I didn’t know I could!”

Andrew scoffed. “You’re the one who started the whole honest answers thing!” He paused. “Well, I guess you weren’t being honest.”

Neil took a step towards him, caught between indignation and shame. “Hey, I don’t owe you my life story.”

Andrew ran a hand back through his hair. “There’s a difference between giving somebody your life story and intentionally misleading them.”

“I wasn’t misleading you intentionally!”

“Just unintentionally, then. That’s great.”

Neil let out a frustrated sigh. “I know it wasn’t great, but I don’t get why you’re getting so worked up about this. It’s not that a big deal.”

“You’re an idiot,” Andrew told him before surging forwards and kissing him.

Oh.

Neil wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react, or how he wanted to react. He stood there for an infinite moment as Andrew’s lips pressed against his and tried to figure out how they had gone from point A: arguing to point B: kissing.

Andrew stepped away, his eyes darting around the room with nervous energy.

 _Oh_.

“I guess I misread things,” Andrew said, before pulling the door open and scrambling out of it. Neil stared at the open door, frozen, for a beat too long before he came to his senses and ran after Andrew.

“Andrew, wait!”

Andrew was already out the front door, and both Bee and Abby were on their feet, watching with concern. Neil ignored them and hurried after Andrew, who was a few houses down by the time Neil had pulled shoes on and gotten outside.

“Andrew!”

Neil ran straight into his back when Andrew came to an abrupt halt. He straightened up and watched as Andrew faced him, his shoulders tense.

“What was that?” Neil blurted out. He winced at himself. Really?

“Well, I thought it was my first kiss with a guy I’d been dating for a month, but I think I was wrong.”

“Dating for a month?” Neil repeated. _What?_

Andrew rubbed a hand against his temple. “Neil, friends don’t just get dinner together alone at a restaurant on Friday night. Or text each other all the time. Or chauffeur each other around. Or, I don’t know, ask each other deeply personal questions a week after meeting each other.”

“I’ve never had a friend my age before,” Neil confessed, shuffling his feet.

“My bad,” Andrew sighed. “Let’s just try to forget this ever happened and move on.”

Neil frowned and looked at the boy in front of him. He thought back to the weeks of dumb texting conversations, the weeks before that of fraught car rides and nights spent trying to figure Andrew out.

“I don’t want to move on.”

Andrew squinted at him. “God, you’re not homophobic, are you? That would be the cherry–”

“I’m not saying anything right,” Neil ground out, frustrated with himself. Andrew looked unimpressed, but Neil could also see the tension still in his shoulders. “Just–”

And then it was Neil leaning forwards and meeting Andrew halfway. He didn’t stay frozen this time, though he had quite frankly no idea what he was doing. After a few seconds, though, Andrew responded, his hands weaving their way through his hair, which seemed like a great idea.

That was how Abby and Bee found them, twenty minutes later, when dinner was ready. Neither looked surprised, and Neil had to wonder how he had missed something like this.

“It’s because you’re an idiot,” Andrew had told him when they talked about it after dinner, back in Neil’s room. “Guess you need me around to even know what’s going on.”

“Guess I shouldn’t get rid of you just yet,” Neil agreed, taking a step forwards. Andrew’s eyes tracked the movement and Neil smirked. He could get used to that.

“I’d like to see you try,” Andrew said, tone casual, but his gaze had come to rest on Neil’s smirk.

“Luckily for both of us, I’m not going to.”

Andrew rolled his eyes before yanking him down, and Neil smiled.

He conceded that maybe group therapy wasn’t _all_ bad. After all, it had gotten him here, and he certainly wasn’t complaining about _that_.

**Author's Note:**

> always accepting prompts (esp AUs!) on tumblr at exysexual! :)


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